hopes. And, therefore, the mass of them did not recognize their King when he appeared, and are still blinded. But the Gospel found a providential preparation for its efficacious introduction, in the minds of the heathen nations that held the chief sceptres of the world, when the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles was broken down. The Persian, with his doctrine of a terrible kingdom of evil and darkness over against a kingdom of light, could find a power of attraction in the teachings of Christianity regarding God and Satan and subordinate good and evil spirits. The Greek, with his belief in a God of light, who sustains a fatherly relation to men as his offspring, was groping after an unknown deity, and inquiring for a perfection in man which he could think of only as united with divinity. And the Gospel met his yearnings by telling him of God the Father, as revealed in the person of Jesus, the perfect son of man, the truly divine Son of God. The Gospel found the Egyptian inquiring after his hidden God, Ammon, and trying to look through a multitude of mysterious symbols into the depths of divine truth; and it declared to him the true substance of all the shadows and symbols of nature and providence and ancient revelation. The Roman was full of the idea of sovereignty and law in a single empire, under one head. And Christianity came to him, demanding that his human emperor should bow to the superior lordship of Jesus, the one King of kings, and Head over all things to the Church. And the same proclamation of one divine kingdom,

with Christ as its glorious Lord, made its efficacious appeal to the rude Goths, those worshipers of a wrestling and conquering God, who were struggling wildly for victory over all opposing powers, on land and sea.* Thus the kingdom of heaven availed itself of a great characteristic element in each of the religions with which it came into contact, up to the day of its undisputed ascendency in western Asia, northern Africa, and southern and middle Europe.

But converted nations are slow to escape from all their long-cherished errors, and get hold of a pure religion, without overlaying it with any of their old superstitions, or favorite principles or policies. The Persian dualism proved too strong for large portions of the Christian Church, and leavened them with the Gnostic heresy. The Greek philosophies insidiously crept into the theological systems of Alexandria, Ephesus and Constantinople. The symbolism of the Jewish, the Egyptian, and other systems, stole unnoticed into the Church and perverted the simplicity and purity of her spiritual worship. And at last the passion of the Roman for imperial sovereignty in the State, asserted for itself a lordly sway over the Church, in the exaltation of a man as the vicar of God, where the Cæsars had held their sceptres and thrones. A long and mournful experiment, under corrupted Christianity, was thus entered upon, which must teach its necessary lessons to the Church and the world by a schooling process of ages, before the way would be prepared for a final and secure

* See Maurice's Religions of the World.

return to the unadulterated word of God. The Mohammedan delusion was suffered to spring up, to offset and counteract the dualism of the East, and reassert the doctrine of one supreme God, against Gnosticism and the idolatrous corruptions of Greek and Roman Christianity.

At length the reformation of the sixteenth century broke forth in Middle Europe, and disinterred the long buried doctrines of salvation by grace alone. But after it had partially redeemed from spiritual despotism the major portion of Western Europe and Great Britain, it still left in the Protestant churches too many remnants of antiquated error, to afford any well-founded hope that the world would be converted by the purest type of Christianity, which was represented as yet among the reformed communities. God, in his wise providence, left his people to suffer persecution from their fellowChristians, and be driven to find a new home for their faith in a land where they might build up the institutions of the Gospel without special entanglement with the established associations, and perverted usages, and stereotyped errors of the old world. Meanwhile an infidelity, sometimes bold and daring, sometimes insidious, sprang by reaction from the abuses and corruptions of the churches of Europe, and spread itself abroad not only on the continent, but in Great Britain, and even in this western home of exiled Christians. And this unbelief was commissioned by divine Providence to drive Christian teachers, both in Europe and America, to a more careful scrutiny of their theological systems, and oblige them to eliminate from their religion the

indefensible and pernicious elements which still remained incorporated with the truer and better elements of their faith. Thus by stern trials many Protestant churches were largely purified, and prepared to undertake anew the grand enterprise of sending the Gospel, without admixture of serious error, to every creature. But yet there remained, in the purest and most working communions of the Lord's people, much of imperfection in point of doctrinal belief, and more as to living and welldeveloped piety. The missionaries of the cross have been sent forth into most of the great countries of the heathen world; and large results have been achieved.

But our Christianity is not yet found to be manysided and practical enough to commend it fully to the various nations whose religions it seeks to supplant. It operates slowly in India, in the Burman empire, in China, and even in Persia; while it works its way more hopefully in Turkey and Syria. Will not the repulses which it sustains, among the different nations of heathen and Mohammedan countries, at length teach us all where lie the defects in our doctrinal schemes, and in the prevailing type of our piety, and lead us to correct our errors on all sides, and come up, as individuals and churches, to a purer and more apostolical style of spiritual life and activity? And when we shall learn, from the mistakes of the Church in past ages, and from the ill success of our religion as we now hold it, among the various heathen nations, where our faith and practice need amendment, to make it most truly operative, shall we not get back at last

into the footsteps of the Apostles, and be able to apply the very truths which they declared, with an unexampled and irresistible power?

The

We shall come nearer and nearer to the primitive standard, in our doctrine and spiritual life, until our religion, as we teach and exemplify it, will become worthy of acceptation, and the nations will be made to see that it is just what they have been feeling after through so many long ages. The Mohammedans will then gradually come to see that our Gospel recognizes the same authority and supremacy of one God for which he has fought so long, while it teaches him to receive from Christ and exercise and conquer by that holy love, which his own system never infused into his restless heart. Hindoo will at length perceive that the pure light of Brahm, the incarnations of his divinities, and the offerings of his whole sacrificial system, embrace only so much of truth as the Gospel most clearly teaches him in its revelation of the one personal God, the incarnate and atoning Son of God, and the unfolding of a divine heart to reach and melt the cold and despairing heart of man. The Buddhist will discover, in the light of the Gospel, the very truths which he has been for ages grasping after, with a sense of disappointment, as if the substance which at times he had almost attained, still turned to shadow when he approached it. He will detect in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, as God imparted to good men, in distinct outline, the old idea which had glimmered before his mind. regarding a divine spirit in humanity at large. And he will see, in the union of the Holy Spirit